Remember Miss Frizzle’s amazing field trips on The Magic Schoolbus? Where taking chances, getting outside (and sometimes inside someone’s intestines or other odd places) are the orders of the day? It’s summertime, what better opportunity is there to go on adventures, “make mistakes” and “get messy.” But, summertime also means scorching temperatures and when a heatwave rolls in sometimes there is no choice but some downtime indoors. Time indoors and time on their technological devices doesn’t have to be a total loss for tweens and teens. Here are some amazing STEAM-inspired apps allow your kids to cool off, have some fun, and best of all—learn and grow, when going outdoors and getting messy aren’t an option.

Starry Night Interactive – If your kids love Van Gogh’s Starry Night, they will love this interactive app where they can manipulate a masterpiece and relax to some enjoyable music at the same.

Robot School Programming for Kids – A multileveled game where kids help R-obbie the Robot who has crashed his spaceship. Kids learn how to “learn procedures, loops and conditional instructions” to help him get home.

Math Versus Zombies – Kids are part of a team of scientists who are helping to save the planet from zombies by using their super-human math skills.

NASA Visualizer – This is a great app for kids excited about space by presenting the latest research in an “engaging and exciting format.” Users can see images of Earth that have never been seen.

Frog Dissection – This is an iPad app for tweens and teens to learn about organs and organ systems in an eco-friendly way.

The Everything Machine – This app will blow your kids’ and maybe your mind! “Create something as simple as a light switch or as complex as a kaleidoscope, a voice disguiser, a stop-motion camera, or a cookie thief catcher!” But watch out, your kids can use their inventions to play a joke on you.

Swift Playgrounds – A great coding tool for novices. Users solve puzzles to learn Swift, a coding program used by expert coders to build many of “today’s most popular apps.”

Thinkrolls & Thinkrolls 2 – This puzzle slash physics app with 26 fairytalish characters is “100% irresistible for kids 3-8. Get it now and let your little geniuses amaze you with their reasoning and problem solving skills!”

Busy Water – This is another critical thinking leveled puzzle game that uses paddle wheels, water, blocks etc… to help Archie get back into his tank. Logic and reasoning are developed as users work their way through the levels.

Simple Rockets – What kid doesn’t get excited about becoming a scientist who designs his/her own rocket ships and helps them blast off into space?

Noticing Tools – This is a “ground-breaking suite of iPad apps that make learning math and science irresistible through play, creative design projects, and collaboration.”

World of Goo – Another puzzle game, this one requires users to move the goo. They must find ways (by building bridges, towers, etc…) to get the goo to a pipe that will suck it up.

Odd Bot Out – This robot is the odd one out. Tossed into the garbage for not “being good enough,” Odd the robot has to escape over a 100 unique rooms to find his way out.

Inventioneers – This app teaches “realtime physics and the science behind different features like air, fire, magnetism and (of course) jumping bunnies.”

Attributes – Users play around with attributes and patterns to solve puzzles and complete various levels.

Also try: Move the Turtle; DragonBox; The Land of Venn

As parents, we will always encourage our children to get out and explore the outdoors, and to “take chances, make mistakes, and get messy.” But, there are times when being indoors and having some downtime on our devices is necessary and doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. So, when the heat index is 115 degrees, and you have to get that project done without interruption, allow your children to play one of these great STEAM apps. And, while it isn’t as good as time with you or trying out the latest science experiment, at least you know they will be learning and doing something that is a win/win.

https://makerbolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screen-Shot-2019-07-24-at-4.42.01-PM.png479725Anne Fellinihttps://makerbolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/MakerBOLDERLogo4color.FINAL_-300x179.pngAnne Fellini2019-07-24 16:41:312019-07-24 16:41:31Cooling-Down during a heatwave: STEAM APPS that kids and parents will both love

Pulitzer winning editorial cartoonist, inventor, engineer, and author Rube Goldberg left a significant legacy to inspire makers and thinkers. While most believe that the STEAM Education revolution started just a few years decades ago, Goldberg has been inspiring tinkerers with his detailed drawings for generations, aside the great inventor artist Leonardo daVinci.

Goldberg drew an estimated 50,000 cartoons starting in the 1920s, many of which depict delightfully wacky machines completing simple tasks. Goldberg once said that his creations were symbols for “man’s capacity for exerting maximum effort to accomplish minimal results.”

Rube Goldberg is the only person to have ever been listed in the dictionary as an adjective! That’s how special he is. Learn more about this intriguing individual here.

Learning the Goldberg Way

Approach life with humor and curiosity. View tasks with whimsy and playfulness. Break it down into simpler parts. Share your ideas, however wacky they are!

Complicated, multi-step contraptions when broken down are simply simple machines. The wheel and axle, inclined plane, wedge, lever, pulley, and screw are all around us, we use them in our daily tasks. Learning about and building with them helps us explore science and engineering in an engaging, practical, inspired way.

Building and testing the concepts of movement and force with simple machines allows for practice and repetition, or in STEAM Ed lingo, fostering “testing and iteration” skills. Repeated failure and making changes are a good thing!

Spring and summer mark the start of severe weather including tornadoes; they also mark the arrival of bees and butterflies. Spring is a great time to enjoy the outdoors but a great time to learn! Children are fascinated (or terrified) by tornadoes; we all are somewhat. So, why not help children face their fears and learn what a tornado is while making their own. While you’re at it, it would be beneficial to review how to stay safe when a tornado warning occurs. It is also a great time to teach children about the importance of pollinators and how to help their populations grow while at the same time adding some charm and appeal to your garden. And the best part? You get to play in the dirt!

Be Like Dorothy Without Leaving Kansas: Make A Tornado In A Jar

Materials:

8 ounce with a lid (pickle, mayonnaise, or canning jars are perfect.

Water

Vinegar

Food Coloring

Dish soap

(Old Glitter is Optional – and a lot of glitter isn’t environmentally friendly)

Fill the jar with water leaving about an inch at the top.

Add a teaspoon of vinegar, dish soap, and glitter (optional). ***if the jar is bigger than 8 oz. try doubling the measurements, for example 16 oz. water to 2 tsp. of vinegar and soap.

Add the lid and tighten.

Swirl the jar in a fast circular motion for 10 seconds. Lay it down on the table and watch the tornado.

Discuss with children words like: vortex-a whirling mass (water, air) moving in a circular path and centipedal-a force that makes an element or object follow a curved circular path. Share with children that a tornado is a column of air that is created when cold air meets warm air and that they typically appear out of cumulonimbus clouds. The really extreme tornadoes can have winds as high as 300 mph and can be bigger than two miles in diameter.

Tornado safety is important, so this would be a good time to discuss the family’s plan during a tornado warning. Choose a spot in the interior of the home and explain to children that this is to avoid outside doors and windows. You can also discuss the difference between a tornado watch and a tornado warning.

Bees, Butterflies, and Dirt, Oh My!

Spring is an awesome time to talk about pollinators and the importance they have on our food sources. Learn all about bees and butterflies, including: how they help the environment, how they help your family and how they can help the insect populations grow.

Plants need pollinators as much as they need sunshine, dirt, and water, and pollinators, like bees and butterflies, need plants. If plants like corn and other fruits and vegetables are going to produce more plants to feed people, the Earth needs lots of pollinators.

Prepare an area for the plants. Rake up the soil and add in some new potting/top soil and plant food.

Dig holes as big as the containers.

Lay the plants in the holes.

Surround the plants with extra soil and pat firmly.

Water

Bees and butterflies are attracted to flowers. Bees particularly like white and yellow flowers and butterflies like big areas of red and purple flowers. With older children, make a map (plan) when things will bloom and for how long so that you have a combination of plants that will continually bloom all summer long.

Another great addition to your bee and butterfly garden is a bird bath where they can get a drink of water. And if you want to take it a step further, do some research on creating insect nesting grounds where you can further encourage the growth of bee populations.

Spring is a great time to experiment, to be outdoors, to be immersed in nature, and best of all, to dig in the dirt, so get to it.

Summer is Around the Corner (Really!)

Summer Camp can be an enriching experience filled with social emotional learning (and fun!)

With winter in full swing, it is hard to imagine warm weather and the end of school ever being a reality. But, before we know it, the final bell for the last day of school will ring, and our kids will come running out with boundless energy. As parents, we need to be prepared and have a summer plan.

Summer camps are a great way to keep our kids engaged and cared for while we work in the summers, but even more importantly, they give our children wonderful opportunities to explore their world, to grow socially and intellectually, and to get out their endless exuberance. Because of those reasons, camps are in high demand. So, as with most things, it is the early bird that gets the worm (aka the best camps in the area).

Step 1: Brainstorm and make a summer camp list

Talk with your child about things that they would like to do this summer. Think about your child’s interests. There are camps for almost everything under the sun: cooking, art, film, Legos, science, you name it…

Also talk to your child about what kind of camps they are comfortable with. Some children are independent and secure enough, not to mention mature enough, to want to try out some overnight camps. Other children may think that sounds fun, but when it comes time to leave their home and family for a week, they may not be ready. Consider doing a test run first. If your child hasn’t been away to a friend’s for a couple nights, then they probably aren’t ready to leave everything they know and be gone for a week.

Step 2: Research what summer camps are available

A basic Google search will give you a lot of options, but here are a few sites that might simplify your search.

The American Camp Association (ACA) is a database that filters the camp offerings across the nation. There are 3717 camps/11,071 programs to choose from. You can filter the choices by costs, duration, participants (including family or individuals), activities, affiliations, disabilities, and location.

Once you have researched and found some camps that might be of interest to your child, then you should apply as soon as possible to secure your child’s spot. But before you do, make sure you create a calendar that outlines the summer. Plug in time with grandparents, time with friends, and mark off the week after school gets out and before school starts to give your child some much-needed downtime.

Step 3 – Preparing your kids for summer camp

Camping List: Check to make sure your child has all the supplies they need for camp. Read and reread the packing list. If the camp doesn’t allow phone use, prepare your child. If they can’t have electronics, keep them home. Make sure that they have tried out any new equipment in order to test it and make sure it is comfortable and in working order before they head to camp.

No matter their age, Kids love a variety of summer activities.

Talk: Discuss with your child what the sleeping arrangements are going to be like. Talk about showering and whether or not it is in a setting that is different from what they have experienced at school or at home. Find out if they will be sleeping in a big room with 10 other kids or if they will be partnered up with someone. The better you prepare them for anything unique they may experience the more likely they will be ready and enjoy their experience. But don’t worry too much because part of the camp experience is learning to navigate new situations and helping your child build confidence. They may fail, but they also have the supports to overcome any challenges.

Make a Plan: Have a homesickness plan! Give your child some strategies for working through feelings of fear and sadness. Encourage them to tell a counselor. Counselors are trained to help children work through those feelings. Encourage them to go talk to a new friend, make a new friend, or try an activity when they start to feel blue. Help them redirect themselves with deep breaths and happy thoughts

Give Yourself a Pat on the Back: You are providing your child with an unforgettable experience that will prepare them for the future!

Turn that Plain Jane Snowman into a Traffic Stopper!

“Do you want to build a snowman?”

“NO!” Your children exclaim.

Photo from Andrea_molnarova29 on Instagram

Building snowpeople can lose their charm quickly, especially when you have to spend an hour getting dressed and you’re entertaining children whose boredom meters jump off the charts with the slightest repetition. So, now what? It’s time to think outside the box and get rid of Frosty’s 1960’s Burl Ives attire and persona and actually make him (or her) come to life! Instagram is, of course, a great place to find ideas.

This is one of those slap yourself in the head moments where you think “why didn’t I think of that.” Why not make an actual snow person! Your children can make one that has human parts and dress them up with items that define their likes and personalities.

Upside Down, Girl You Turn Me… Old Classic Snowman, Made New!

This clever snowperson from Mommy Shorts has things all upside down. Visit Mommyshorts.com for other inventive spins on ole’ Frosty that will h

Another creative idea from Mommy Shorts at Mommyshorts.com

ave your kids flying out the door in no time.

Use Props for your Snowman!

Snowmen like to play too! Photos and ideas from Topbuzz.com. Click the link to see more highly imaginative ideas. Spoiler alert, some of them are darn right cute, and some might be better suited for a snowy Halloween.

Photo from BlotTO on Pinterest

Get Artsy!

Think snow sculpture like those on blogTO and who knows where you and your child’s imagination will go! And, why not give your kids squirt bottles and/or spray bottles filled with water and food coloring or tempera paint. They will have a ton of fun turning your snowy yard into a winter masterpiece. Check out Resourceful Mama for more ideas.

Photo by Jill Yarberry-Laybourn

Or check out this snow dog that is sure to get your kids excited about heading out the door!

Better Yet, Drink Your Snowman!

Once your kids are happy and exhausted come inside for some good ol’ fashioned hot chocolate. Only this time, think outside the box and make one that is not only delicious, but adorable. Check out these whipped cuties!

MakerBolder wins EdTech Grant from Eduporium

MakerBolder was honored to receive Eduporium’s EdTech Grant to support our upcoming Rocky Mountain STEAM Fest. You can read more about the Grant HERE. We love the way Eduporium is supporting in-home and in-classroom STEAM Education (and you will, too!). Below is an article from the Eduporium team that shines a light on awesome tools and toys that are both fun and educational. Enjoy!

By Andy Larmand, Eduporium

The Eduporium team is on a mission to provide educators and innovative community leaders with technology that helps students develop crucial STEM skills through active learning and hands-on experiences. Eduporium also offers a monthly grant program, through which they award $500 worth of EdTech to deserving educational institutions and organizations.

MakerBolder was chosen as Eduporium’s January grant recipient and selected Ozobot robots to give out at their annual Rocky Mountain STEAM event! Ozobot’s are fantastic STEAM tools that allow children to take part in hands-on learning and help build a strong foundation of 21st century skills, including coding.

Check out some of the most popular MakerEd tools for enhancing STEAM education.

3Doodler: This 3D printing pen combines some of the most exciting and important elements of STEAM education in engineering and 3D design. It is both a 3D printer and a pen meaning that kids can use it to draw objects in three dimensions! One of their pens is designed for students as young as 6 years old and the other is suitable for students in middle school and up. They are both completely safe for children and include various fun filaments for printing.

littleBits: These electronic modules snap together easily via their individual magnetic connection and each has a color-coded function.

LittleBits tools can be pieced together in thousands of ways to give people of all ages the opportunity to “iterate” their EdTech creations!

The different Bits include inputs, outputs, wires, power supplies, and more. As students build inventions with them, they learn that it’s not possible to have a functioning output without an input and it’s not possible to activate their circuits without power, eventually progressing to building circuits they can control with code.

MaKey MaKey: The MaKey MaKey uses the conductivity found within everyday objects and inside the human body to turn any conductive object into an interactive touchpad. Students can attach a conductive object to the MaKey MaKey board, “ground” themselves by holding one of the kit’s jumper wires in their hand, and activate the conductive object by touching it while holding the wire in their hand since they too are conductors of electricity!

MakeDo Packs: These maker-focused tools allow kids to invent and build with cardboard! Students can optimize their inventions with easy-to-use pieces, like reusable screws, tools, and saws, which are all plastic and enab

MakeDo EdTech kits expand creative problem solving.

le students to anchor cardboard construction projects. Each of MakeDo’s kits promote creative thinking and inventive problem solving in a fun way.KEVA Planks are small, rectangular wooden blocks kids can strategically use to build all sorts of structures. Not only are they able to be creative and design buildings and bridges, they also learn the fundamentals of engineering along the way. With KEVA, students are challenged to create sound structures that can support themselves, teaching them important design and engineering principles in the process.

To discover more MakerEd tools for enhancing engagement and inspiring learning by making, check out the Eduporium website or reach out to info@eduporium.com. And, be sure to encourage kids to use hands-on learning to unlock new levels of inventiveness, creativity, and ingenuity as they build future-ready skills!

Broadening Girls’ perspectives on STEM Careers helps them consider all options from an early age.

The glass ceiling is an invisible, but real barrier in many industries and especially in STEM related fields. While more and more women are entering science, technology, engineering and mathematical fields, they still only make up a little over a fourth of the workforce.

According to the National Girls Collaborative, only 11% of physicists and astronomers are women while 17% of the civil, architectural, and sanitary engineers are female. Female chemists make up 35% of the field. The most notable gap in the gender workforce is in the computer and high tech industries. According to Catalyst

Dr. Cathy Olkin from the Southwest Research Institute, is a leading Planetary Scientist and an advocate for girls in STEM Careers.

.org whose mission it is to accelerate growth for women in the workplace, women make up only one-fifth of the job force in that industry. Also concerning, the women who do work in these fields make 20% less on average in the same role as men. But as a whole, women who work in STEM industries receive a much higher wage than working in other areas.

What does it all mean for Girls in Science?

It means that a growth mindset needs to be embraced by all parties: parents of girls, educators, employers and industries. More women in the STEM workforce allows companies and industries to develop in ways that don’t just help 50% of the population and increases their relevance to a much larger market.

In a ForbesWoman article, Moira Forbes asks female professionals prolific in their STEM fields of biomolecular and computer engineering, how to narrow the gap. Solutions include educating girls that they don’t have to be Einstein mathematically in order to be successful in a number of STEM fields; likewise, they suggested inspiring and fostering curiosity (in other words, let your daughter take apart that old cracked iPhone). Brittany Kendrick who has a Master’s of Science in Urban Infrastructure Systems, shared that societal paradigms need to change. “As a Black Woman, a Civil Engineer, bred by the public schools on the southside of Chicago, it is my personal mission to resist the social, economic, and political structures that are in place to discourage my ability and pursuit.” Other girls deserve the same, and so advocacy and enlightenment need to continue.

Dr. Temple Grandin, internationally acclaimed scientist and advocate for hands-on learning suggests that girls need early exposure to STEM subjects in order to develop a passion for them.

Kids will seldom see themselves in careers and fields where they don’t see themselves represented (whether it be gender or race). The more exposure girls can get to see women in STEM industries will help ignite girls interest and plant the seeds they need to see themselves growing in STEM industries. Likewise, a girl won’t know her options until she is exposed to them. The more activities, camps, events where girls can get messy and explore the varied degrees and career opportunities in STEM, the better!

https://makerbolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/IMG_2002.jpg15362048Martha Lanaghenhttps://makerbolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/MakerBOLDERLogo4color.FINAL_-300x179.pngMartha Lanaghen2019-02-15 11:58:362019-02-23 15:22:09Putting a Hammer to the Glass STEM Ceiling - Current Research on Girls in Science

Family Problem Solving – Upside Down!

CreatEdu worked with a high-performing charter school to explore how to foster more independence in their students as they prepared for college. Sometimes we tackle a challenge and we just hit a wall. Good ideas seem to be unattainable and it’s time to try something new. We jumped into a ‘worst-possible idea’ brainstorm to shake things up.

With this new criteria, people worried less about coming up with “good” ideas, and without this pressure, the ideas started flowing. One educator suggested that we have Oprah give every student a car. Another said “Let’s throw kids out of a plane with a parachute to see if they are independent!” Logistically (and from a liability standpoint), taking high school students skydiving was a terrible idea- but then, we dug into this concept further. What training takes place before skydiving? What scaffold for independence is built before you let someone jump out of a plane? (For more about how this program was developed, read the full story here). This “worst-possible idea” ended up inspiring the program that was eventually implemented, and would never have made it onto the table if we’d only focused on coming up with good ideas.

When you shift the way you think and make the process more playful, great ideas can spring from bad ideas. This technique is not about forcing a bad idea to work, rather about using your brain differently and either flipping bad ideas upside down or identifying valuable components in the bad ideas that act as inspiration for great ideas.

Bring it home – Creative Family Problem Solving

At CreatEdu we sometimes bring design thinking into our homes. We can’t help it. The following is a story about how Sara, CreatEdu’s Director of Operations, used the Lemons-to-Lemonade concept to problem solve with her own family:

The Problem

“Despite my own minimalist tendencies, with two grade-school kids, our house is messy and has lots of stuff. So. Many. Toys. After one too many ‘lego vs. barefoot’ incidents, we called a family meeting.”

Me: The toys are a disaster, it looks like a toy bomb went off and we can’t even walk through the house without injury! How can we keep the toys and house cleaner?

All I got was a mumble about mom cleaning them up every day and diverted eyes, but otherwise it was silent. It was time to try something new. It was time for a worst-solution idea brainstorm. Ideas quickly started flowing:

The Worst-Possible Ideas

Kid 1: Lets dump every single toy on the floor and make a toy carpet!

Kid 2: Yeah, and let’s just break all of the toys as we walk over them every day!

Kid 1: Let’s put every toy we own in a garbage bag and throw them out.

Kid 2: Let’s give all of our toys away.

After the ideas slowed down, we looked at all of the crazy, bad, no good, terrible ideas we’d come up with and you know what we saw? Gems, lots of little gems hidden in these bad ideas.

The Creative Family Problem Solving Gems

These worst-possible ideas helped us identify some of the underlying problems with our toys in the first place: we couldn’t find them easily so they get dumped out frequently, they don’t have designated homes so clean up is harder, and there were too many of them (many of which had been outgrown). Once these worst-possible ideas were mined for gems, actual solutions began to evolve and ‘The Toy Capsule System’ was born.

We dumped every toy we owned on the floor (not joking!). Each kid picked 15 toys to keep in the house (art supplies and books were exempt and sets of toys, like legos, counted as 1), everything else went into a donate or storage pile. The storage pile went in clear plastic bins in the garage where toys could be traded (1 toy out, 1 toy in). Toys had homes and were easy to find. There were less of them so clean-up was quick and “shopping” for toys became fun and kept things fresh. This idea would never have been born without a bad case of ‘lego-foot-itis’ that prompted a worst-possible idea brainstorm!”

Try this now!

The next time your family hits a roadblock around a common issue, whether it be:

The use of electronics

How to get homework done

Collaborative decisions about what activities to do together for fun

How to get chores done, or something else entirely

Try a worst-possible idea brainstorm. For ideas, download CreatEdu’s ‘CreateEDU’s Lemons to Lemonade Brainstorm Guide’. See if your brainstorm leads to anything exciting. It won’t always, but you might be surprised and it might help diffuse an otherwise challenging family topic (who knows, it could also be fun!).

Mobile Maker Kits are a part of BVSDs new initiative to bring “learning by doing” back in classrooms. Read all about them here.

So, you’re looking at this mobile maker kit thinking, “my students will enjoy it but how do I turn this into activities that generate rigorous learning?” Kids love making and they become wildly engaged and we’ve got you covered on harnessing energy and interest into learning and exceeding standards.

For starters, Makey Makey can provide you and your students with an incredibly smooth ramp into Arduino and what’s known as “physical computing” while also offering a flexible tool that can help your student inventors integrate noises, buzzers, and signals into projects. Try building your own as the inspiration to understand types of numbers. You can do even more with Makey Makey and Scratch programming, tying in lots of subjects: teach history while meeting CCSS ELA standards or teach mitosis, programming, and making together! If you need a ramp into integrating Makey Makey and Scratch, this project can help.

Workbench has hundreds of projects ready to go, many using the tools in your kits. The best part is, you can also create a free account that will allow you to turn your back of the napkin project idea into a project, share it with colleagues, set up classes, assign projects, and track your students’ progress. AS your maker kits change, and you discover new uses, Workbench Platform will help you organize, deploy, and develop the best ideas for your classes.